Social history, an amorphous term for an ill-defined subject, has consumed the study of history at U of T. As a history student, no matter which class I enroll in, regardless of its title, most of the lectures are devoted to social phenomena. I have sat through lectures devoted to topics like the rise of The Beatles, the history of tea, and the layout of Renaissance Italian cities. As a student approaching many new periods of history for the first time, I want to learn with broad brushstrokes, rather than the pointilist detail of social and cultural trends. Battles won and lost, agreements made and broken — these are the lifeblood of traditional, political history. These events tell you who had influence, and the manner in which they used that influence. Such topics ought to be fundamental.
The chief problem with social history is that it lacks grounding. Political history focuses on power. Economic, or Marxist history, looks at the influence of money. And social history? It encompasses everything else: class, culture, custom and everything in between. It lacks an overriding axis of analysis to guide its study.
Our course lists are full of titles like “History of Advertising,” “History of North American Consumer Culture,” and “Crime and Society in England 1500–1800.” By my count, there are more courses on offer relating to the consumer revolution than to the French, English, American or Soviet revolutions — all earth-shattering developments in world history. Even courses that appear to be politically focused often spread themselves far beyond the course description to include disparate social trends. Moreover, some areas of history are almost entirely neglected. Notably, in the whole course offerings of the history department at the U of T, there is not a single course that relates to military history of any kind.
I have no doubt that in the 1950s U of T would have had few offerings for students interested in the nuances of social history. Now, however, the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. We have cast aside the very foundations of the discipline. Studying history without discussing elite politics is like studying biology without any grounding in chemistry. It can still be interesting, but massive parts of the story will remain unintelligible. Thus far in my degree, though I have often been interested in the social history I have covered, I have rarely felt satisfied that I have a proper understanding of the events covered in the course.
Social history came to prominence in the 1960s as a response to the preponderance of political history. Now, it enjoys the kind of dominance that stimulated its development. A university as large as ours should be able to offer a range of courses for students with different interests. Though the history department is one of the largest departments in Arts and Sciences, it fails in this regard. U of T’s focus on social history impoverishes the education which an undergraduate should receive, and leaves too few opportunities to cover the fundamentals of historical scholarship.
